Happy September!! I might be a day late, but here is the weekly fishing report and the first for September.
Tim had a tournament on the Connecticut River at Bartons Cove where he says he started off top water fishing for smallies, chasing fish that were blowing up on bait. He reports that soft plastic flukes ended up enticing nibbler smallies and he could not get them to bite anything else. Then Tim said they moved to some areas where he knew there was wood broken off tossing with a ned rig and a little finesse jig. He was only able to catch four bass good enough for fifth place, but everybody else in the tournament had a tough day as well. Tim said It seemed the finesse bite was the ticket. That tournament was an outlier, are usually have some pretty good weights on that section of the river.
Jerry at 3:00 am on Friday last week and headed north for a day on Lake Champlain in search of smallmouth and pike . Arriving at the boat ramp a little after 7:00 am he was the only one at the launch, just north of Plattsburgh, NY. He reports that the water was very clear with visibility up to 8 feet revealing scattered weeds. The winds were only supposed to be 6-8mph out of the south but it ended up being more like 10 – 15 mph with showers . Jerry managed to catch two smallmouth at 16.5 inches and a 13 incher on a dropshot rig with Berkley maxscent flat worm in green pumpkin. With the wind blowing into the bay I loaded up the kayak in the truck and ran six miles north to another ramp in which the wind wouldn’t be so strong. This bay was more weedy so he tried a spinnerbait, chatterbait, and crankbaits looking to hook up with a pike but it didn’t end up happening so he went back to the dropshot and ned, which landed Jerry some nice smallmouth bass in the kayak. He said he caught them in 10 to 15 feet of water amongst scattered grass. He said he was only able to fish until 1:30 when thunderstorms forced me off the water.
Next Jerry went and stayed at his camp that’s little more than an hour away. Heading south in the morning, he checked a few boat ramps but wind was stronger out of the north so he ended up all the way down to South Bay. He said that the water visibility was maybe six inches, which believes is normal for there. Jerry fished for a few hours with nothing happening. The only bite was a walleye that came off at the kayak on a white and gold spinnerbait.
Last but certainly not least, Jerry took his 5 year old nephew bass fishing for his first time. He set him up in the kayak with him on a small pond in Franklin county where he caught three largemouth bass 14 to 15.5 inches on a ned rig. I believe he may be hooked for life after seeing the excitement in his face and not wanting to leave. Take a child fishing and introduce them to the great outdoors.
Nelson got out this past weekend up in New Hampshire for the last regular season event for Elite Kayak Fishing (EKF) on Lake Winnipesaukee and he said that this was first time fishing this lake. With only a few hours to prefish, he tried to just cover as much water as he could. I checked several areas where I thought bass should be hanging out in shallower water with only rock bass for my efforts. I moved offshore to check some deeper areas with the same results. On his way back to the ramp Nelson made a cast with a drop shot at a lone rock pile in relatively shallow water and finally, a bass; a 16 inch smallmouth. I finally had something to go on.
Nelson said that on the morning of the tournament he, again, started shallow with top water lures and soft plastic stick baits thrown at docks. He reports that only one lone pickerel and several rock bass came from that effort so he moved offshore to shallow rock piles. It didn’t take Nelson long to put a five fish limit together and by 10 am he had his limit and was in 8th place and he had 5-1/2 hours to upgrade. I was feeling pretty good about it too. Nelson moved from spot to spot looking for bigger bites, but unfortunately he was only able to upgrade a quarter inch.
I finished the tournament in 21st place out of 66 anglers which put me in a top 25 finish for Angler of the Year and qualified me for the Championship on Lake Champlain. All of my scoring fish were caught with a drop shot in 8-15 feet of water. Lake Winnipesaukee seems to be a great fishery but the boat traffic is absolutely insane. If you’ve never fished there I do suggest you check it out because it is a great fishery. Good luck out there!!
The weekend forecast is looking like we are going to hang in the low 80s before dropping into the 60’s on Monday and Tuesday, with rain. I hope that everyone stays safe and enjoys the long weekend!
That’s all we have this week folks, get out and fish!
Wild Woman 